


Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Neptune

by sachertortes



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, Romance, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14270259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sachertortes/pseuds/sachertortes
Summary: Darcy starts crushing hard on Bucky Barnes, but it seems he has a secret identity.Yes, another one.





	Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Neptune

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank yous go out to [zephrbabe](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Zephrbabe) and [Queenspuppet](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/queenspuppet) ! I’d still be tearing my hair out over this one were it not for these two magical ladies. Run, don’t walk, to their fics!

The Avengers bring back the Winter Soldier from Wakanda on an ordinary day in the middle of the work week. Darcy’s been working with Jane in the labs. It’s not unusual to spot an Avenger or two when they pass by – they share the floor with one of Stark’s workshops, after all. But today an entire tall, broad-shouldered, pack of them file by. Stark leads the way, gesturing vaguely towards their workspace then at something in front of him, giving a perfunctory tour.

 

The Winter Soldier hangs towards the back of the group, with Steve keeping him company.

 

She’s not too ashamed to say that she finds Barnes kind of hot.

 

Okay, so he _allegedly_ has a file on him that’s as scary as the Black Widow’s.

 

And he’s supposedly _really_ _old_.

 

But how could she not find him attractive? They’ve all been briefed on him, and she’s seen his photos. Even through the shaggy hair, she notices that he has ice blue eyes and cheekbones that could probably cut glass.

 

It doesn’t help that he’s currently dressed like every single bad boy archetype, ever. Blue jeans over muscular thighs, a tee and a worn grey-black leather motorcycle jacket.

 

Her turns to her and their eyes catch for just a second but it’s enough for Darcy to give him what she hopes is a friendly, and not crazy, smile.

 

But then Jane begins complaining that she’s all out of duct tape and there’s a disturbing ‘clank’ sound that follows and Darcy is once again immersed in science and trying to keep her bestie alive.

 

 

\------

 

 

The second time she sees him, he’s standing in the hallway of the living quarters with Stark. They seem to be arguing in hushed tones. Stark is gesticulating madly, eyes wide, and Barnes has his arms crossed about his chest answering Tony’s rapidfire questions with a set jaw and grunting one-word responses.

 

When they see her, their conversation immediately stops. Bucky gives her a solemn little nod in greeting which she awkwardly returns.

 

“Uh, hi,” she says. “Just headed to the gym.” She holds up her gym bag and lightly shakes her water bottle.

 

“The whole gym’s closed, kiddo,” Stark answers, and she doesn’t miss the little glare he sends Bucky. “It’s being renovated.”

 

She has no idea what Bucky has to do with the gym being renovated, but she sighs. Of course. When she finally gets the motivation to get her ass off the couch and onto a treadmill, the universe sends Stark to throw a wrench into the works.

 

She goes to the little public gym down the street and gets a day pass.

 

Later, she tells Jane about the encounter.

 

“Crap. I totally forgot to tell you,” she says, finally looking up from her notes. “I think I know what their argument was about. Stark’s putting in another pool. Saltwater. Temperature controlled, all that fancy stuff.”

 

A smile breaks over her face. “Oh my god, Jane! That’s so cool, I’ve always wanted to try – ”

 

“It’s not for us.”

 

“It’s not?”

 

“Private. Avengers-only.”

 

“Well. Shit.”

 

“I know. Sorry, Darce.”

 

\------

 

 

The third time – well, she _doesn’t_ see him and that’s the problem. He sneaks up on her while she’s kneeling in front of the security panel that leads to that shiny, new, saltwater pool.

 

It’s not even that she wants to go swimming that badly. It’s more that Stark’s been getting on her very last nerve lately, and she was bored and had the afternoon off.

 

She’s got her tongue poking out the side of her mouth and is about to take a screwdriver to the thing when his low, rumbling, “Hello” has her scrambling up to her feet in alarm.

 

His face is impassive save for a tiny twitch at the corner his mouth that she might have imagined. A snowy white towel is draped over one shoulder of his leather jacket.

 

“Oh! Hi!” Darcy answers, and looks down at her hand. It’s holding the offending screwdriver. His gaze follows. “I was just…I’m trying to, uh…” She trails off, a number of excuses crop up and then are extinguished just as quickly. “I’m getting revenge on Stark,” she admits.

 

“What’d he do?” Bucky fairly growls, and Darcy’s eyes widen.

 

“Oh! No, no, it’s like…petty revenge. Friendly,” she explains before there’s an incident between the Winter Soldier and Iron Man (again). “So I bought these giant inflatable swans in bulk, right? And I figure where better to wade and swim than a lovely new pool?”

 

“…Alright,” Bucky states, unconvinced and also looking at her like she’d told him she trained hamsters to speak Klingon in her spare time.

 

So much for not appearing crazy.

 

“Okay, so. I know Jane and I don’t have gadgets or powers and we definitely wouldn’t have wanted to touch that slithering thing in the Bronx last week with a ten-foot pole, but it would be nice if you supers could like, remember our names once in a while. You know what Stark calls me? Intern. Darlene, if I’m lucky. And today it was Dharma. _Dharma_! Which is why I’ve Sharpied my actual name to the sides of these beauties.” She gestures to her bag of deflated swans and toes the floppy lifeless neck of one back into the bag. “Let that Iron Dork try to forget it now!”

 

His right eyebrow ticks up. “Yeah?”

 

Darcy takes a breath, a bit embarrassed now that she’s mostly done with her outburst. “Yeah.” She puts the screwdriver into her pocket. “So that’s why I’m trying to…break in.” She winces. Damn her stupid blabbering mouth. Barnes doesn’t look like he’d snitch but in a building of do-gooders, who could really tell?

 

He gives her a look she can’t quite place, then leans down to the panel for his retinal scan. There’s a click from the door, and it slides open as the smooth voice of the computer greets him by name. Bucky steps over the threshold and turns to her with a smirk that makes him look years younger.

 

Eagerly, she picks up her bag of pool floats.

 

“Well. Good luck, Darcy Lewis.”

 

Then that bastard just _winks_ at her right before the door slides shut in her face.

 

\------

 

 

Turns out James Buchanan Barnes is a goddamn troll.

 

Darcy kind of loves it.

 

\------

 

 

“Let’s go get sushi,” she says to him one afternoon when it’s clear the poor dude’s getting cabin fever.

 

The Avengers are easing him into missions which means that sometimes he’s sitting on his butt in the Tower while everyone else goes off to save the city. She’s watched him scroll through the same list of Netflix movies seven times. Eventually, he’ll get desperate enough to settle on some godawful mid-2000s horror movie, so she feels a rescue attempt would be welcome. “Wait. You ever had sushi? It’s – “

 

“I’ve had sushi, doll,” he interrupts her, turning to give a wry smile over his shoulder. “And I’d love to. Lemme get my jacket.”

 

Before she can tell him that it’s a warm spring day and he probably won’t even need it, he’s shrugging it on and grabbing his wallet.

 

At the sushi place, Darcy gets her usual spicy tuna roll with miso soup and Bucky gets – well, everything else it seems. The man puts away a truly alarming amount of sushi. He orders plate after plate of sashimi, followed by what looks like the entire unagi supply in the metropolitan area then finally, the party platter which is served on a tray shaped like a boat. It takes up the entire width of their table.

 

She and the waitress watch him eat in awed silence.

 

They’re strolling back to the Tower and she’s actually really enjoying spending time and chatting with him. Well, she’s chatty, and he interjects every once in a while with questions or dry remarks. They’re basking in the warm, spring sunlight and that skipping-a-school-day feeling of being away from the Tower, when they pass by one of those top your own frozen yogurt places.  

 

Bucky turns to her with a hopeful look on his face. “Dessert?”

 

After that, they hang out a lot more. When she’s not working or when he’s not on missions or working out (rumor has it that he spends a lot of time in that pool Stark put in making her think it was some kind of olive branch), they’re spending time together.

 

Sometimes others join them for lunches. Bruce takes them to this hole-in-the-wall vegetarian Chinese place and Natasha seemingly has radar for the best blini in the city.

 

But by some unspoken agreement every Wednesday evening becomes theirs. It’s usually takeout and they watch a movie afterwards, switching up who gets to choose. Bucky gamely sits through her nostalgia-filled viewings of objectively bad movies from her childhood and in turn she watches, amused, as he yells at various action heroes for their misjudgments (“Always keep your damn shoes on!” he yells at John McClane, who pries shards of glass out of his bare feet over a bloody sink).

 

 

\------

 

 

Summer descends on Manhattan, hot and muggy. Darcy squints against the sunlight coming through the windows whenever she makes it up from the labs and she pulls at the collar of her t-shirt, but Bucky is never far from his jacket. She never asks him about it – if anyone deserves a security blanket it’s that guy, for sure.

 

They make plans to go to Coney Island. Darcy’s been itching to see the ocean again now that it’s getting hotter, and she figures maybe Bucky and Steve might wanna come too since the last time they were there, as Darcy said, “wooly mammoths roamed the Earth”.

 

“I can’t go,” Steve says to them the morning of, and Darcy looks up from her phone where she’s showing Bucky pictures of a competitive eater chowing down on dozens of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs. “The Doombots from the other day - I’ve got a thigh…injury.”

 

Two pairs of blue eyes give him skeptical looks.

 

“Helen said I shouldn’t aggravate it,” Steve continues.

 

“Oh, it’s ‘Helen’ now, is it?” Bucky asks with a smirk. Steve’s neck gets pink, while Bucky gives him a look like he wants to ruffle his hair or punch his shoulder or whatever it is that guys do to show affection and approval.

 

Steve coughs lightly. “Anyways. You two have fun. Bring me back some saltwater taffy,” he jokes.

 

But as they’re heading out, Steve waits for Bucky to go ahead before gently touching her elbow. Concern for his friend is etched all over his face, and tense little lines appear around Cap’s eyes.

 

“Darcy – ” he starts, almost in a whisper and his eyes shift subtly between her and Bucky, who’s waiting by the elevators. “About Buck. He, uh – ”

 

“Don’t worry, Cap.” Darcy slips on a pair of cat eye sunglasses. She smiles winningly. “I’ll feed him and water him and let him ride the Cyclone with me and everything.”

 

“Okay. Yeah. Good.” Steve opens his mouth like he has more to add, but lets out a frustrated exhale instead. “Thank you”.

 

At Coney Island, they browse through tacky souvenirs while strolling the boardwalk, and try not to laugh as a seagull swoops down to snatch a fried Oreo out of the hands of a bewildered tourist.

 

Eventually, they make it to the actual beach.

 

She can tell that Bucky is apprehensive at first (no one can possibly be that interested in the pressed penny machine) but he joins her in stepping through the soft sand to stand before the ocean.

 

The saltwater breeze is a long way from the smell of the asphalt and exhaust of the city.

 

Bucky, gaze trained on the horizon, gets a look on his face that can only be described as pure longing.

 

“You wanna go into the water?” Darcy asks. “I don’t think anyone’ll steal our shoes and it’s probably not that cold.”

 

Bucky blinks as if she’d startled him out of a trance.

 

“I – No. No, I don’t want that,” he answers, shakily. It’s so warm out that Darcy wished earlier that she’d worn shorts, but Bucky pulls the edges of his jacket tighter around himself.

 

She shrugs.

 

“Okay,” she says, as casually as possible not wanting to spook him. She keeps her eyes trained straight ahead, at the grey waters of the Atlantic, the postcard perfect blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Finally, after long moments of being surrounded by the sound of the sea, and of the happy shrieking of the crowds and vacationing families, she ventures to him, “You good?”

 

They’re standing so close their arms are pressed against each other’s and under the sun-warmed leather of his jacket she can feel the unyielding metal of his cybernetic arm.

 

From the corner of her eye, she sees his hesitant attempt at a smile. “Yeah. I’m good.”

 

But he’s still holding himself a little tense, and he makes for a foreboding figure – dressed all in dark clothes amongst the colorful summer wardrobes of the tourists on the beach. She has no idea what brought this on. She thought they were having fun but now he’s silently staring hard at the water and clenching his fists by his sides.

 

“Aw, dude,” she sighs, and takes a chance to turn to him to hold her arms out slightly. “C’mere, bring it in.”

 

And for two long seconds, Bucky does nothing, and she doesn’t even breathe until finally he lets out a self-deprecating huff and steps into her arms.

 

He hugs her tentatively, arms circled loosely about her waist until she takes the initiative and winds her arms tighter around him.

 

Bucky hunches over to fit his chin into the space between her shoulder and neck, and something thrills up her spine when she discovers that he fits there perfectly.

 

Then Darcy feels it – she thinks it’s the brush of his hair against her cheek at first, but when has that ever felt so soft and…lingering?

 

Her eyes snap open and she blinks rapidly, feeling herself flushing pink.

 

Did he just -

 

“C’mon, let’s head back before that saltwater taffy place closes. Don’t want Old Man Stevie to get cranky.”

 

“Okay,” she manages to croak, before trudging behind him as he leads them back to the boardwalk.

 

It was probably just wishful thinking, she tells herself.

 

 

\------

 

 

On Wednesday, Darcy shuffles into Bucky’s place in her most comfy clothes. She’s looking forward to a relaxing night in. She and Jane had been going 110% in the labs since Stark approved their new equipment, and she’s anticipating an evening free of work.

 

Darcy’s babbling on, as usual, about the movie they might watch later or how much she’s looking forward to food that doesn’t come dried and in packets, when she notices that Bucky’s unusually silent even for him.

 

She turns from where she’s rummaging in his kitchen drawers for napkins to a strange scene before her.

 

On Bucky’s little kitchenette table two candles flicker cheerily, and the lights are turned low. A vase with a single daffodil is on the middle of the table and sure, they’re eating takeout from Mario’s, but there’s _silverware._

 

And – and this is the biggest, glaring clue – Bucky Barnes is holding himself very, very still. His gaze is darting around the room and the tips of his ears are red.

 

“Whoa,” she says, while her nerve endings fizz. “ _What._ ” The candles, the flower, the glasses of wine. “…Is – is this a date?!”

 

Bucky huffs and glances to the side. “If you hafta ask, doll...”

 

“But – but! It’s Wednesday Dinner Night!” Darcy exclaims. She feels like she’s dreaming, that any moment the alarm on her phone will trill and it’ll be morning, just another day in the real world where the hot guy she’s been crushing on isn’t about to ask her out.

 

Bucky rolls his eyes, with exasperation. He crosses his arms over his chest, not even looking at her now.

 

“Darcy – ”

 

“I’m not dressed for…I’m not dressed!” She gestures to her pants, fleece with CULVER running down one leg. “I’m wearing my fuzzy pajama pants!”

 

At this, he looks at her from under his dark lashes and smiles a little. “The pants are cute,” he states.

Darcy tries not to gawp but manages to only make a squeaking noise. Bucky runs a hand through his hair and bites his lip.

 

“Hey, if you don’t wanna, it’s okay…”

 

_So she didn’t imagine that kiss on the beach,_ she thinks to herself as her heart beats happily, giddily against her chest.

 

“Bucky, I definitely want to,” she says to him, grinning like the smitten dope she is. Bucky comes to stand before her and after a pause, draws her close to bend down and kiss her. His plush lips she’s been dreaming about are gentle on hers, but his hands clutch at her waist when she takes his bottom lip between her teeth. She finds herself arching into the solidness of him when his arms come around her to hold her tight. 

 

When he teases his tongue into her mouth she practically floats off into the stratosphere – at least until they’re interrupted by the loud gurgle of her stomach.

 

“Alright, dinner first,” Bucky laughs, his voice low and slightly ragged. He steps away from her to pull out her chair with a flourish.

 

When he kisses her again later that night, sitting on the couch lit by the glow of the muted television, it’s soft and careful. First, he slides his nose against hers, slow and close until finally, finally, he slots his lips over hers. It’s perfect, she thinks, how he fits against her just the way she thought he would. He tastes like the wine they had with dinner, feels like sugar syrup pooling languid and heavy in her stomach. She wants to keep kissing him forever, but finally has to pull away to breathe. She rests her forehead against his, lips parted, panting.

 

Up close, Bucky’s eyes glint strangely in the dark. Shadows from what she thinks are from the television screen run across his face like water, and she chases them with her fingertips over his soft stubble.

 

“This okay?” Bucky asks, in a whisper that fans warmly across her lips. Smiling, she takes his shirt in her fists, and pulls him back to her to show him exactly how okay it is.

 

\------

 

Everything stays pretty much the same.

 

They snark at each other, go on outings beyond the Tower together, only now he touches her more and is easier and freer with his affection. He takes her hand in his as they walk in the city, brushes a tangle of hair off her face in the mornings when she’s still sleep addled and fuzzy before she’s had her coffee. They lay tangled up together on the couch when they watch movies.

 

They lay tangled together on the couch when they _don’t_ watch movies, too.

 

But still, his hands stay above her waist, and over her shirt. Even as he gathers her close, presses hot open-mouthed kisses along the column of her throat until she feels like she’s about to fly out of her skin.

 

The one time he accidentally brushes his thumb along her bare hip where her t-shirt had ridden up, she lets out an embarrassingly high moan and he answers with an involuntary press of his hips against hers. And Darcy thinks to herself, ‘This is it! Finally!’ and is thankful for her matching underwear. But just as suddenly, he’s sitting up and gently pulling her upright with him. When he leaves her apartment soon after, he pecks a chaste kiss to her cheek and shoots her an apologetic smile.

 

Of course, she wants nothing more than to take his hand and lead him to her bedroom (or his bedroom, or hell – the damn Tower lobby is looking good at this point) but she’s letting him set the pace. After all, she’s not the one who had had terrible things done to her against her will for seventy years of captivity.

 

Despite his…reticence in furthering their physical relationship, everything else is moving farther along than Darcy has ever experienced with any of her past boyfriends.

 

Her stuff begins to appear in his quarters. Fuzzy pairs of socks, colorful sweaters, and her hair ties practically live at his place. At least one pint of her favorite ice cream is in his freezer at all times.  

Bucky’s old paperbacks make their way to her bookshelf, his favorite pair of worn combat boots migrate to her closet. One day, she finds a combat knife duct taped to the underside of her coffee table. (When she confronts him about it, Bucky only shrugs. “Just in case,” he says. She makes him promise not to hide his guns in her apartment, and he acquiesces but just barely.)

 

And then there’s his jacket.

 

His jacket - which he’s hardly ever without - now turns up on the arm of her couch, draped over an ottoman, hanging on a hook next to her oven mitt in her tiny kitchen. Each time she texts him to come retrieve it and he does.

 

One morning when she wakes, it’s somehow at the foot of her bed, pooled over her feet like some kind of dark, heavy quilt. She has no idea how it got there, she would’ve remembered if it was there before she went to bed.

 

She eyes it warily as she gets ready, until finally she picks it up and holds it in her arms. It’s actually a lot heavier than it looks but it’s as buttery soft as she thought it would be. This whole time she thought his jacket was leather, but now as she tests the weight of it in her hands she can see that it might be something else – suede, perhaps. She runs her fingers lightly over the velvety collar. The sunlight streaming in from her bedroom window shifts the colors from grey to black and back again.

 

“JARVIS? Can you tell me where Sergeant Barnes is?”

 

“Sergeant Barnes is in the common room, Ms. Lewis.”

 

When she gets there, he’s standing by the coffee maker chatting with Clint while Jane and Steve sit at the table.

 

“Hey,” she greets, and offers him her cheek to kiss. He does and then his eyes alight on the bundle in her arms. “You left your – ”

 

She hears him suck in a breath and watches as his eyes go all wide and bright.

 

“ _Finally_ ,” Bucky declares with the hugest grin she’s ever seen on him. “Been leavin’ that around you for weeks, hopin’ you’d get it.”

 

“What?” Darcy says. “Get what? Your jacket?” She holds it slightly folded in her arms, and absently runs her thumb over the seam of the shoulder.

 

“Buck. You still haven’t told her?” Steve asks, tone so laced with exasperation and disbelief it pops her right out of her reverie.

 

“Tell me what?” Darcy asks, and she’s not at all sure that she’s gonna like where this is going.

 

“Better to just show you, sweetheart,” Bucky says. He gives her a nervous smile and takes her hand in his. “You guys can come, too.” He nods towards Jane and Clint and Steve.

 

They end up at the Avengers private pool.

 

The Olympic sized saltwater pool stretches for the entire length of a floor and is a deep shade of teal. The surface ripples gently while the pumps work.

 

Steve’s voice echoes hollowly throughout the room. “Buck, are you sure this is how – “

 

“Yeah, yeah I’m sure,” he answers Steve. He holds out his hands for his jacket and Darcy gives it back to him. He takes off his shirt before putting it on and zips it with a finality that makes Darcy sure she’s missing something. “Thanks, sweetheart,” he says to Darcy with a tight smile. Then, “Okay. Can – Can everyone just turn around while I get in the pool?” he says.

 

Clint protests. “What? Why do we have turn around – oh, shit. Okay _okay,“_ he concedes as Bucky’s hands go to his belt. “Am I seriously missing breakfast to watch you skinny dip?”

 

There’s the sound of cloth sliding off then hitting the floor. After that, comes a watery splash.

 

“Okay,” Steve says, and they all turn around to find the place completely devoid of Bucky

 

Darcy’s brows knit together. “I still don’t understand. What’s going on?”

 

“Where’d Barnes go?” asks Jane, and Steve just points to the water where just beneath the surface a dark, blurry shadow is gliding quickly and steadily towards them.

 

Finally, it surfaces.

 

“Is that a – ” Clint starts. “That’s a…Hey, little dude.”

 

“ _What is going on?”_ Jane demands.

 

Darcy, too shocked to contribute, stays silent.

 

“This is a joke, right?” Clint asks.

 

“What??!” Jane says, again. “That’s not – No, Steve. _No_.”

 

“This isn’t a joke,” Steve says, and looks to the water as if to say, ‘Told you this was a bad idea’.

 

“Barnes is a fucking seal,” Clint murmurs under his breath.

 

“Oh my god,” Darcy breathes, heartbeat pounding in her ears. “Bucky, you’re – ”  The huge eyes, the mottled grey skin, the slightly flaring snout. “… _So cute!”_

 

And then Darcy becomes certain that she’s one of the few people on the planet who has ever been side-eyed by a seal.

 

Bucky bobs gently in the pool, watching her carefully as droplets of water bead off of his sleek, silvery fur. There’s something in the way that he’s looking at her, exasperated and also adoring, that convinces her that that’s definitely still Bucky in there.

 

That, and the jagged white scar that’s where his left flipper should be.

 

It’s completely silent in the room and Darcy gets on her knees at the edge of the pool. She leans down and Bucky tilts his head just a little.

 

“Well, this definitely explains that time I watched you eat your weight in sushi,” Darcy jokes, and even with only one fore flipper, Bucky manages to flick water onto her. Her answering laugh bounces through the pool room and she dips her fingers into the water and flicks it back at him.

 

Huge shiny, black eyes stare back at her.

 

His whiskers twitch.

 

_Adorable_.

 

“You’re taking this…remarkably well,” Jane ventures, her gaze sliding between her best friend and her pinneped boyfriend.

 

Darcy rolls her eyes and points at Steve. “Super soldier who slept on ice for seventy years,” she says, then turns to look at Clint. “Spy/assassin with spooky-good aim.” And finally, she jabs her index finger in Jane’s direction. “And _you,_ Janey, have a brain the size of a galaxy and regularly bump uglies with an alien god. The fact that my boyfriend is a – a – ”

 

“Selkie,” Steve provides, giving her a bemused smile.

 

“Right, a _selkie_ , is hardly worth batting an eyelash over at this point, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

As if to prove the point, Bucky lets out a gurgling grunt and propels himself out of the water. With a few shakes, water droplets fall away to reveal the man.

 

The man who is crouching, naked except for his pelt/jacket.

 

Jane lets out a squeak then averts her gaze.

 

Darcy also tears her eyes away because some (admittedly scorchingly hot) makeout sessions don’t mean you get to peek without asking.

 

From beside her Clint’s exclamation of, “Aw, fuck, my eyes!” fills her ears before Clint shields his vision with his hand.

 

Steve, apparently used to this sort of thing by now, just grabs a nearby towel and throws it to his friend, who wraps it around his waist.

 

“Give us a minute wouldja, punk?” Bucky says.

 

Steve ushers the Jane and Clint out the door, Clint emptily threatening that he’s “had it with this weirdo Avengers shit” and Jane calling out a series of a questions no one can really answer (“Are there other selkies? When he turns into a seal, where does his mass go? What about the arm? Darcy? Darcy! Tell your boyfriend to come down to the labs once you’re done, I have questions!”).

 

Finally, they’re left alone.

 

“I _do_ have questions,” Darcy tells him, stepping close and trying not to track the beads of water over his pecs. “Like a fuckton, actually.”

 

“I know, kitten. And I’ll try my best to answer them. For now, though…you’re – we’re…okay?”

 

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Darcy says.

 

At her words, Bucky is sliding his lips over hers and threading his hands in her hair.

 

She opens her mouth to him, takes in his answering groan. Bucky’s kiss is the open ocean, the rhythm of it making heat swell inside of her. His tongue slides alongside hers, drawing from her a muffled gasp and the realization that they’re still in the Avenger’s super secret pool room.

 

When they part, she experimentally licks at the corner of her mouth where he’s been.

 

The taste of saltwater diffuses over her tongue.

 

She grins, and he grins back just this side of feral.

 

“Well, sweetheart.” He reaches up a hand to brush his metallic knuckles over her cheek. “Turns out I’m a selkie.”

 

Darcy bites her bottom lip. “Turns out,” she laughs softly, then looks to him finally understanding. “That’s why we never – “

 

“Not without you knowing first,” he answers.

 

Anticipation for the future thrills and sparks up her spine. “Well, now I know. And your jacket?”

 

“You found my pelt. Held it in your hands.” Bucky pauses, a little solemn. “S’tradition. So now...”

 

“Now…?”

 

Bucky leans down into her space, droplets from the long strands of his hair plink onto the side of her neck. Her skin prickles with goosebumps and her fingers instinctively grip his shoulders.

He whispers into her ear, soft and low, “Now you keep me.” He nuzzles briefly at the pulse at her neck and she shudders against him. “If you want.”

 

He pulls back to look at her, and he’s got a tiny smile on his face, but she can see the stiff hunch of his shoulders, the halting way his eyes are searching hers.

 

She tugs him by his jacket - his _pelt_ \- to her chest even closer and relishes the way his expression warms as she does.

 

Darcy smirks.

 

“I’m keeping you.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- I realized I’ve played fast and loose with the selkie folklore – hopefully you enjoyed the fic anyways!
> 
> \- I love reading all of your comments, so leave me some if you wanna <3 
> 
> \- Come hang out with me on [tumblr](https://sachertortes.tumblr.com/) !


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